On February 9th, high school students from SHG Moriyama High School Habitable Research Group and Kyoto University students drew imaginary exoplanets with elementary school students in an event called “Let’s think about planets that people can live on.”

It was held at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability (GSAIS). In this workshop, 15 elementary school students from Kyoto Municipal Daiyon Kinrin Elementary School participated, and learned what kind of extrasolar planets are in the Milky Way, then divided into 4 groups and drew the imaginary planets.

The project was carried out by high school students (Natsuki Shirako, Daichi Ogawa, Chise Hatsuoka, and Mayu Masada) of the SGH Moriyama High School Habitable Research Group, which provides imaginary images of exoplanets to the ExoKyoto exoplanetary database. In the first half of the workshop, they presented about the methods of discovering extraterrestrial planets and the types of extraterrestrial planets, as well as demonstrating the difference between planetary rotation and revolution. When the high school student’s exponent images appeared on the screen, the elementary school students were delighted and surprised.

Although the content was a bit difficult for the elementary school students, they exceeded expectations, and seemed to really understand the environment of tidally locked planets. Also, when they were imagining planets and drawing pictures, they made assumptions such as “there might be microorganisms in the ocean” or “if the distance from the host star is closer, the temperature will be higher.” In the completed imaginary pictures, there were many unique works, from a planet that looks like earth to a planet with many colorful volcanoes. We hope that the elementary school students who took part in this workshop gained an interest in space.

Incidentally, this project utilizes the explanation of extrasolar planets using ExoKyoto’s database. These explanations were carried out by 2nd year Science Major Hina Bando, and 3rd year GSAIS Major Ryusuke Kuroki. The entire workshop was set up by Ruriko Nagashima of the Graduate School of Integrated Studies in Human Survivability. In addition, the entire guidance was done by Prof. Yamamiki who is in charge of the development of ExoKyoto.

* The imaginary extrasolar planet images drawn by the elementary students drawn are shown below. The copyright of the imaginary pictures are owned by the student whose name is listed.